Have You Seen This Man?

note: I'm going to be writing things you may or may not agree with. They are not scathing or offending things, just my assertions based on loose knowledge of (for example) Doi Takeo's works. If there are any inaccuracies or points that are disagreed with...leave a comment! I'm a student and I'm always learning new things!

Have you seen this man? He walks around the streets of Tokyo, a bluish-gray uniform with billowing pant-legs, white towel wrapped on his head, sometimes with white gloves. He is often carrying a cigarette, and can be seen in a pack of two or three. He wears shoes that can only be described as...ninja-like?

sorry for poor quality...I have no scanner!

Okay, so maybe those are NOT ninja shoes (but they look like ninja shoes). That's okay, because this is not really a 'wanted' or 'lost persons' picture. This is my own [non artistic] rendering of a typical Japanese workman. Why, you ask, did Lydia post this picture. Well, it's not because I wanted to showoff my drawing 'skillz'.

One of the first things many people notice when visiting Japan for the first time is the uniforms. [Practically] All jobs have a sort of uniform (not counting fashion industry, but even then...). From the workman (which I have so painstakingly re-created for you) to bank-tellers, from the convenience store worker to the salary man and office ladies.

Maybe it has something to do with the 'group-mentality' Japan is so often attributed with. When you are part of something, be it high school, work or home, you are part of a group. Doi Takeo talked about uchi and soto, terms meaning home/inside and outside. According to Takeo, and many other scholars who write about Japan, it is a common phenomenon to group yourself and acquaintances into these inside and outside groups. It may be automatic, for example using polite language to a superior, or by choice (I guess the best example I can thing of is speaking informally with a new acquaintance?). Why do the Japanese make such group distinctions? Well, don't we all? I know I treat strangers differently than I treat my siblings. It's a social tool that dictates how you act, that way you aren't doing inappropriate things at inappropriate times!

I think that it's really easy to do this in Japan because of the language. There are different verb-endings for honorific, humble, formal and plain-language. If you ask your boss how his family is, you ask him with honorific, and he will reply with formal, or maybe plain-language. If he asks you, he asks using formal and you answer with humble-language. It's all very confusing, and, I hear, that modern youths in Tokyo often confuse humble and honorific language.

This is a photo that my father took. He was quick to note the uniforms, especially these pink ones of the ladies who cleaned the shinkansen. Although you usually see uniforms for jobs such as these, I believe Japan takes a step up and above institutions in the United States. Note the pink. There were no men in this uniform, only women.

On that note [tangent], there is a common theme of gendering uniforms. For example, police men and women have different hats (I don't understand this). I was at a cafe the other day, and I noticed that the male servers wore a blue apron and the female servers had a red one. Interesting, and a little disturbing.

Okay, okay. I know what you might be thinking. 'In the US there are uniforms for all sorts of jobs too, but you don't see me writing about it'. Well, that is true, but uniforms in the US are just so...uniform. You don't see pink suits on the ladies cleaning Amtrack Trains (do you ever see people cleaning Amtrack?!), and you never notice that a female police officer has a different hat than a male officer. Uniforms in Japan are so tailored, clean and fresh looking that it's hard not to notice someone wearing one.

Maybe not my most interesting post, but I enjoyed writing it!

Thanks for reading :)

Another Month, gone!

Well, my parents were in Japan from the 13th to the 22nd! It was a blast!
(Mom and Dad at Ueno Park)

We went to Kyoto, Osaka, Minakami and (of course) Tokyo. Here's a smidgen of photos, you can find the rest on my facebook page (as soon as I load them ^_^)

Our second night in Tokyo, we enjoyed fine Japanese cuisine at a bar in Asakusa.
And by that, I mean we had fried chiken, oya-ko don, and some good Japanese beer.
mmm-mm!

Mom and I are happy that our shinkansen has arrived, but are anxious to get on board and eat!! (Please note: the beer. eki-ben always taste better when consumed on the train, with a beer!)

Here we are, in Kyoto! The first one is Kinkaku-ji, and the other is Chio-in dera.
Chio-in is a pretty sweet Buddhist temple. You are allowed to go inside, even if there is a ceremony going on! I believe it is pure-land Buddhism. I think pure-land is the one where anyone can reach...the pure land? Enlightenment? Well, I make no claims to know anything about Buddhism, but I know that this place has a really great atmosphere. It's kind of 'off the beaten path' so it's never as busy as the other temples. Plus, being able to sit inside the temple and listen to the chanting is a unique experience that I really enjoyed!

We were in Kyoto for St. Patrick's Day...and wouldn't you know? I didn't wear green that day! At least we got a good Guinness. Yum yum.
I managed to convince my parents to go to karaoke that night (after we got some not-delicious after the beer)

The didn't think they would enjoy it, butI think they had more fun than I did!

We went to Osaka on the 18th, to catch the fourth day of the Osaka Sumo Tournament. It was a massive event. And I mean....MASSIVE!


The pic on the right shows Dad's favorite wrestler: Yamamotoyama (山本山). He's so big, his name has TWO mountains in it! He won that night, but he's not doing well currently. He is 5-4.
There are 15 days in a sumo tournament, and each day the [top ranked men] wrestler one match. The lower ranks start from 9:30 am and go all the way through lunch time. The high-ranked pros don't start until 3, and they finish at 6.
We were there from 11am to 6pm. It was pretty awesome.

We also went to Minakami to visit my other host family. It was a relaxing time, because we were out of Tokyo and Kyoto, and didn't have to worry about catching trains or buses. We could just sit and soak in the breath-taking mountain views of Tanigawa Mountain:



Our time at the Yamaji Pencion was spent mostly doing things like drinking coffee, eating gourmet meals, napping and taking baths. It was a very relaxing time! I got to play monopoly with my host family while my parents went to bed early. Jetlag is a drag sometimes (all the time >.<)

I was reunited with my host family...There's Mitsuki and I being silly, and then me helping clean up. It's almost like I never left!

So, there's a peak into my time with my parents. All 6 of them. Now, if my Tokyo and Minakami host parents ever come to Kansas at the same time, that is going to be a very trying experience for me. Can you imagine having three mothers and three fathers all at once? Especially since they all have such different personalities! Ah!

OH! I also did puri-cura with my parents...but I didn't get the photos sent to my cell :( Let's just say, you don't need/want to see them. We are so dazzling, it's a danger to your health!

I'm making no promises for my next post...but I have an idea for my next short one already :)
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Let's learn Japanese!

oya-ko don (親子丼) It means "parent-child bowl". It's scrambled egg and chicken on top of rice, plain and simple. But it's seasoned with soy sauce, mirin, and sake, so it's not that plain. It's one of my favorite bowl dishes!

ekiben／eki bento　(駅弁／駅弁当) ekiben is the abbreviated way of saying ekibento. The Japanese love to make abbreviations to make words easier to say. So instead of saying "Staion Lunch Box" you say "Station Lunch" (basically...)

shinkansen　(新幹線) the bullet train. People (my parents) always get confused when I use the Japanese word...Not that I blame them. I didn't know the word Shinkansen until my second year of learning Japanese.

<3

Minakami: Memories

blogger's apology: I am deeply sorry for that typo in the previous post...it makes me sound like a pervert! haha... My typos are usually more harmless than that!
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This post will have a lot of pictures :)

So, I'm counting down my last days in Minakami, so I will share with you some of my best memories. Oddly enough, the majority of them take place outside of the pension (NOTE: Apparently a 'pension' refers to European[western]-style inns that provide a meal and room for a fixed wage). In no particular order, here they come:

1. Walking my host sister home from school.
This only happened once. My friend Mary was visiting us that day, so I thought it would be a god way to show her our area. The walk to the school took about half an hour. The walk back took much longer. Maybe it was the constant state of snowball-war we were in?Maybe it was the scenery? The wild monkeys? It was a fun walk, and a bit educational, with it's share of mini-culture shock: Japanese children are bullies. It was not the case that everyone was beating each other up, but older children have a sort of 'right' to pick on the younger children.

It's called the senpai-kouhai relationship, in English it's similar to "senior-junior" type relationships. In Japan, it crosses all boundaries: school, business, part-time jobs, sports teams,etc.
It seems that there's always an instance where the younger (or newer to a group) person is exploited; serve tea, pick up equipment, clean up, or in this day's case, take unnecessary bullying, and brushing it off saying "daijyoubu!" (it's fine!). It's not always demeaning work, but rather sort of character building, "I had to do it when I was a kouhai" type thing. In this instant, it's a bit unnecessary, but as I said, they are just children. Children can be mean (not a good excuse, but true).

But in all, it was a good walk. The children kept calling my sister "crazy girl" or other mixtures of mean Japanese words with "girl". I was impressed with their vocab, both Japanese and English! My favorite was when they pointed at the wild monkey we happened to see and said "Japanese monkey". Wow! They then started to call my sister "perverted monkey" (sukebe monkey). How cute :)

Check them out! too wild...the one
who is blurry is my host-sister...
she is crazy sometimes


What's going on here? A messed up senpai-kouhai
relationship...this is how she views our relationship? haha!

2. Minakami outing!
We (the three foreign students) were invited to join some Minakami elementary school students at a community/tourist center. There, we participated in wall climbing, mochi making and overall merry-making and foreigner showing-off. The children were cute, as children are bound to be, and they really loved Ian. Maybe it's because he is a guy, and they feel better about playing rough with him, or maybe it is because he is so tall, but they were all over him! It was fun to watch, but I was a little jealous. On the up side, I actually made it up all the way on the climbing wall, and it was one of those walls that juts out (it was not straight up…). I was super scared, but I did it!

Yatta! I did it!

Mochi making! Pound hot rice gruel into a glutenous mass!
slather that with sweet red beans, a sweet mixture of soy flour and sugar, or
cover it with soy sauce and nori. Yummy!
Aren't those twins sooo cute? I wish I was better with my camera...

3. Going to…Wait, where was it again?
My Minakami host family and I went to Niigata Prefecture by train, which is just north of Gunma Prefecture where I am right now. We did leave the station, but we didn't stray far. It looked similar to Minakami, being that it was surrounded by mountains. We ate a delicious Japanese-style meal, walked a bit, played one of those cork-gun-shooting games (we all won prizes! Mine was a sympathy prize…), and meandered around the HUGE station. This part of Niigata is famous for rice and, as we all know, sake (Japanese alcohol) is made from rice. Naturally there is a huge section of this station dedicated to souvenirs (the majority of it being consumables), and a big part of this huge section is dedicated to sake! At the back and to the side is this magical room:

Looking at this picture (it's a bit dark) you can see rows of sake dispensers. My father bought some tokens (9!) and we shared a little cup and drank samples. I only had 3, but that was enough! I am not terribly fond of the stuff. Not to mention, I didn't want to end up like these guys:

DRUNK MANNEQUINS! Scary stuff!

Ryota, Mitsuki and Lydia.
Note the facial expressions.

This was a good day because I connected with Ryota through a zombie-shooting video game! What a wonderful time. We had to waste an hour in the station because we missed our earlier train back home. Unlike Tokyo which runs trains every 2 to 10 minutes, the trains going to Minakami were far and few between. But, I'm not complaining! I think the best part of this trip was that I was with my family in a completely non-work related setting. Since we live in the pension, it's hard to be 100% relaxed, even when we have no customers. There's always something that can be cleaned, etc. We called it our 'mini-vacation', and it was just that!

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So, there's an update! Tomorrow I am going to an onsen, so I can practice the art of bathing. Speaking of which, I took a bath with my host sister tonight, and it was interesting. As usual, Japan in theory is thrown off by actual Japan. What do I mean? Well, the first thing she did upon entering the bath/shower room was jump into the bath! She didn't wash off first! I asked her about it and she did her whole daijyoubu! routine. I think part of it was that she knows I have no real authority over her and since I cant argue with her in Japanese, I just let it go. In the end, it was a very interesting bath. She talks a lot, and she doesn't even mind that she has to explain vocab to me. She likes to talk :)

Oh, remember the mask from the previous post? I made that at the 'Craft Village' and we are going back there as well! We will do that, go to the onsen and then...drink! Ian told our Minakami associate that he likes to drink, so we are going to an Izakaya (Japanese style bar) together!

Also, I went snowshoeing a few days ago, and I would like to post a little about that, so I'll do that in a few days!

Jya, mata ne! (See ya next time!)